Cognisant of the importance of the public register to the public, the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (Ahpra) has made it easier to use, effective today, especially for particular communities who may have traditionally found it difficult to access.
Phase 1 of an enhancement process that may also include a combining of various registers and use of a “radical search” option, the enhanced functionality of the register is intended to help members of the public make more informed choices about their healthcare.
Some of the changes include:
– increased prominence of the register on the Ahpra homepage so it’s easier to find
– simplified language with pop-up information boxes, and
– improved search functionality, including:
(1) predictive text
(2) phonetic searching capability
(3) search by location (so in addition to being able to ‘check’ your practitioner, you will also be able to ‘find/search for’ a registered practitioner in a particular area. For example, you may want to look for a physiotherapist in Carlton, who’s a woman and speaks Greek), and
(4) refined search filters (including being able to search by the 15 most common community languages).
Behind the scenes, an improved suite of analytics tools will enable Ahpra to finetune any future upgrades so they meet they more fully meet the needs of users, with improved protection against cyber-attacks being implemented.
For a sneak peak of the changes, watch this demonstration video
